Iowa’s lieutenant governor may have dropped a big hint that she’s planning to run for governor in 2018. Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds signed on as Terry Branstad’s running mate in 2010 and the two are running as a team again this year.

During a statehouse news conference this morning, Branstad and Reynolds were asked if they — like U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst — have castrated livestock. “I have not, but after seeing the recognition and name-I.D. that you can get, I’ve said I might have to think about it in the next four years,” Reynolds told reporters. “I didn’t castrate hogs, but I can skin a chicken and I can do that pretty well, so anyway — that’s part of growing up on a farm.”

Reynolds grew up near St. Charles, Iowa. Ernst, who grew up near Red Oak, has garnered all sorts of national attention her “make ’em squeal” campaign ad. Branstad called it a “gutsy” campaign move for Ernst to talk about castrating pigs.

Last week state Senator Steve Sodders, a Democrat from State Center, spoke at an Iowa Democratic Party news conference organized to criticize Ernst and he said: “Iowans aren’t for mutilating animals.” Branstad, by the way, told reporters that as he grew up on the farm, he held pigs while someone else did the cutting.